


I'd like to take you as you are

by MelikaElena



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gilmore Girls AU, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 13:04:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6470974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelikaElena/pseuds/MelikaElena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young single mother Clarke Griffin raises her son in the small town of Arkadia, Connecticut, with the sometimes help of her best friend, diner owner Bellamy Blake. </p><p>Gilmore Girls-flavored AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'd like to take you as you are

She comes in the door as she always does, wildly, the blinds rattling, bells clanging, the heart of a storm. Bellamy looks up from where he’s wiping down the counter, unimpressed. “What minor disaster have you caused this time?” He asks.

 

Clarke rolls her eyes, windswept blonde waves practically vibrating with energy-- or excess caffeine, it’s hard to tell with this woman. “Nothing,” she says, although it doesn’t sound very convincing. “I’m just answering a text message.”

 

Bellamy jerks his chin to his left to the lone customer at the counter. “As you can see,” he says, his voice carrying much more patience than before, “everything’s perfectly fine.”

 

Clarke nods at him before plopping down in an empty chair next to the occupied one. “Hey, kid,” she says. “How was school?”

 

Lincoln shrugs, sighing. “Fine,” he says, eyes on the paper in front of him. “Boring.” He’s doodling in the margins of his impeccably completed algebra homework, sketching out the layout of Blake’s Diner, his delicate shading capturing the worn-out quality of Bellamy’s counter perfectly.

 

Clark sighs too. “Why’d you have to get my brains?” She laments dramatically. She raises an eyebrow at Bellamy, who raises one back. “How did I have to get so blessed with a child who is so good at every subject, just like I was?”

 

Lincoln looks up this time, giving his mother his full attention. “You weren’t good at biology,” he accuses. “Didn’t you say that Dad did your homework for you?”

 

Clarke sniffs. “In exchange for me doing his history papers,” she says.

 

Bellamy snorts. “I’d love to read those,” he says.

 

“Sure you would, nerd,” Clarke rolls her eyes. But then she turns back to her son and sighs again. “So, it’s two weeks into the school year and you’ve gotten all your homework through November covered, am I right?”

 

“Basically,” Lincoln says. “It’s fine. Gives me more time to work on my art.”

 

Clarke’s lips twitch. Lincoln’s love for art definitely all came from her. “Well,” she says, “there’s that. But I would prefer if you were actually challenged in school. If it wasn’t a total waste of time.”

 

Lincoln shrugs. “It is what it is,” he says. “Not like we have any other options.”

 

Bellamy looks up through his fringe in time to see Clarke ever-so-slightly flinch. Money was a sensitive subject for her as long as he’d known her, which had been for as long as Lincoln had been alive.

 

_A memory, the first one:_

 

_Clarke, only a few years older than Lincoln was now, stumbling into the diner right as it opened, a sleeping baby swaddled to her chest in one of those baby carriers that made people look like koalas. Bellamy looked up from the biography of Hadrian he had been reading. Despite the dark circles under her eyes and the baby strapped to her chest, she looked a lot like the girls he would see, every so often, when he went into Hartford for a night out, pretty blonde hair and nice, if rumpled, clothes. Girls who turned their noses up at the likes of lhim. So what was this bedraggled princess doing in the middle of Bum Fuck Arkadia?_

 

_“Can I help you?” He asked, not very nicely. He didn’t recognize her, which meant she wasn’t from here. Bellamy had lived in Arkadia his entire life and knew every person here._

 

_The girl didn’t seem to notice his tone. She practically collapsed against the counter, the added weight of the baby throwing her already shaky balance off-kilter. “Coffee,” she rasped. “Please.” And then, closed her eyes, frowned. “Wait,” she said, as he was halfway to the coffee pot. He turned back. Her face was scrunched up in agony. “I don’t-- I shouldn’t have caffeine. If I’m breastfeeding.”_

 

_Bellamy raised his eyebrows. “Whatever you say, Princess.”_

 

_At this, her eyes snapped open, blazing blue fire, the color of his favorite fireworks on the fourth of July. “Don’t call me that,” she said lowly. “I’m not your princess.”_

 

_Bellamy’s lip curled. He didn’t care for her tone, of the tone of people like her, the one he’d heard all his life when people took in his Philippino features, faded jeans, and worn t-shirts. “It’s my restaurant,” he said, even though it was technically his mother's. “I can call you whatever the hell I want.”_

 

_She shot up with more energy than he thought possible, muttering about small-town misogyny under her breath as she frog marched out, slamming the door to the diner as loudly as possible._

 

_A moment later, he heard the baby cry._

 

“We’ll figure something out, kid,” Clarke says lightly, as Lincoln bends back over his drawing. “You spend so much time at school; I want you to get as much out of it as you can if you’re going to go to RISD one day.”

 

Lincoln looks up, beaming. “Or Harvard,” he says. “I haven’t decided if I want to pursue a more traditional education yet.”

 

“You’ve got time,” Clarke says, hand running fondly down Lincoln’s cheek. “You’re not even fifteen yet.”

 

“Next month I will be!” Lincoln says with a grin. “Do I even want to know where you’ve hid the present this time?” He turns to Bellamy. “She still insists on hiding them, even though I haven’t gone looking since I was eight.”

 

“You could be lulling me into a false sense of security! What if one year I don’t hide them and that’s when you decide that you can’t take the suspense anymore? Then your birthday will be ruined.”

 

“And it would be my fault,” Lincoln says. “Wouldn’t it?”

 

“Lincoln,” Bellamy sighs. “Trying to decipher how your mother’s mind works is like going into a fun house. Completely crazy.”

 

“You mean, super fun,” Clarke corrects him.

 

“You are not fun,” Bellamy says flatly.

 

“What? I’m totally fun,” Clarke says, offended. She turns to Lincoln. “Tell Bellamy that your mother is fun.”

 

Lincoln’s eyes go big. “I’m staying out of this,” he says. He points to a corner of the restaurant. “I’m going to go do my homework. Over there. Where I can’t be bothered.”

 

Clarke glares at his retreating back. “I know your homework is already done for basically the whole year!” She says. “Little coward.”

 

Bellamy rolls his eyes and pushes a mug of coffee towards Clarke, who’s still pouting as she picks it up and takes a greedy sip. “Drink your coffee, Griffin,” he says needlessly.

 

The two lapse into silence in the quiet diner, watching Lincoln, who’s engrossed in his drawing, headphones on, bopping along to his music.

 

“He’s a good kid,” Clarke sighs. “I wish I could give him more.”

 

Bellamy feels his heart twist in his chest. “You give him _everything,_ ” he says quietly, and they both know he doesn’t mean material objects.

 

“I want him to have the same opportunities I did when I was his age,” Clarke says, and Bellamy stills, because Clarke doesn’t talk about her childhood. Ever. “He deserves them. He deserves more.”

 

You deserve more, Bellamy wants to say, the words ringing true in a way that surprises him. Clarke has a good life and knows it, he’s pretty sure: she’s going to school part-time to eventually become a veterinarian, working at the current vet’s office right now as an assistant. She and Lincoln live in a cute little house on a quiet street in a good town. It’s like his own childhood, maybe even a little better, because even though she did as best she could by him, Bellamy doesn’t think he’s ever seen a mother who loves quite as fiercely as Clarke Griffin.

 

“He’s too smart for the schools here,” Clarke says, and then makes a face. “I’m not saying that as one of those braggy mom’s--”

 

“I know you’re not, Clarke,” Bellamy says. Lincoln’s smarter than both of them, and he wouldn’t think of himself or Clarke as dull tools in the shed. “You’re right. The curriculum here… it’s a waste of time for him.”

 

Clarke looks at him with a slight smile. “I’m sure you were the same way,” she says. “Too smart for your own good.”

 

Bellamy has to will himself not to blush. He forgets, sometimes, that Clarke sees him differently than everyone else does here-- sees him differently than he sees himself. “Maybe,” he mutters.

 

“Bellamy,” Clarke says, putting her hand on his arm. He’s wearing his usual plaid shirt, his sleeves rolled up a bit, and Clarke’s hand lands a little awkwardly, half on the material, half on his forearm. He stills, resisting the urge to flex that tendon, to flinch. She waits until he looks at her until she speaks again. “You’re one of the smartest people I know.”

 

Bellamy starts to shake his head. He’s just a general nerd with a small-town high school education who likes to watch documentaries and can hold his own in trivia. He doesn’t know a lot about Clarke’s background, but he knows she came from money-- _old_ money, and that she probably went to the best schools in the state. If she hadn’t had Lincoln when she was sixteen, she probably would’ve been off to Harvard or RISD herself.

 

“You are,” Clarke insists. “You’re one of the smartest people I know and the best.”

 

Bellamy clears his throat uncomfortably. “What’s brought this on?” He asks gruffly. They’re best friends, and they would do anything for each other, but that all goes unspoken.

 

Clarke gives him a self-deprecating smile, clearly aware of her sappiness. “Just thinking,” she says. “I’ve been really lucky, coming here to a town with people who’ve taken us in, helped me raise Lincoln, helped raise _me_ , in many ways. Things could’ve been really different for us.”

 

Bellamy licks his lips. “Oh, yeah?” He asks, trying to sound casual. “How so?”

 

Clarke gives him a look like she knows what he’s doing, but she indulges him. “Lincoln would’ve gone to a great school,” she says, her tone a bit wistful. “He would’ve wanted for nothing. Best clothes, best toys…” Clarke trails off, then says, flatly, “He would’ve been a brat.”

 

“Even with you as a mother?”

 

Clarke shakes her head. “Who knows who’d I’d be?” She wonders. “And it wouldn’t even have mattered what I thought. I would’ve been trapped. His grandparents would’ve completely taken over. He wouldn’t be _mine_.”

 

Bellamy says softly, “That’s why you left.”

 

“Yeah,” Clarke says. “That’s why I left.”

 

_He remembers:_

 

_It’s late and dark, and he’s in the same nightly process as he’s had for the last couple years, going around, wiping down each table, stacking the chairs upside down on top of the table so that he could mop evenly and neatly around them, when he saw a flash of gold, glinting in the street light._

 

_A girl, that same girl, with the baby wrapped in her arms. She’s walking slowly around the town square, bouncing him, and when the street light hit her face he could clearly see that she was miserable. Exhausted. Broken looking._

 

_In the most literal sense, Bellamy made a choice, but it felt more like instinct, somehow, taking his mother’s old army green thermos and filling it with the hot, half pot of coffee still perched on the cooling burner. He had usually washed it out by now, but… well. Maybe things did happen for a reason._

 

_It was getting colder, the last dog days of summer, and so when he noticed she was in a thin, long-sleeved shirt he grabbed a second jacket, stepping out into the night air. It still smelled like sunshine._

 

_She stopped as soon as she saw him, arms locking in on the wailing baby, eyeing him warily. She recognized him. “What do you want?” She asked, glare hard, fierce as a feral cat. “I’m not disturbing anyone, you know. I bet you can’t even hear me from the diner--”_

 

_Bellamy thrust an arm out, thermos extended, jacket draped over his forearm. “Here,” he said, and when she looked at him helplessly, he rolled his eyes and stuck his other arm out. “Trade?”_

 

_She frowned. “What?”_

 

_“I’ll hold him for a little bit. I’m sure your arms are tired, and this’ll warm you up.” He pointed to a bench. “Sit there, okay? I’ll stay in your sight.”_

 

_She stared at him, not moving, heedless of the crying baby. “Why are you doing this?” She asked, more distrust in her eyes than he’d ever seen before._

 

_He licked his lips, nervous. “Because I’m an asshole,” he said honestly, and judging by her startled look and small smile, it was the right thing to say. “And I want to help you.”_

 

_She bit her lip, clearly torn. “I don’t need anyone.”_

 

_“Everybody needs somebody,” he says softly, and it is a bit like corralling a wild animal, feeding them, gaining their trust. Showing them he means no harm._

 

_The baby was still crying, and she looked so tired. “Okay,” she said quietly, giving in, and he could see from the look on her face that she felt like a failure. “But stay within my sight, okay?”_

 

_Bellamy nodded. “Of course,” he said. They walked to the bench and Bellamy put the thermos and jacket on it. He held out his hands. “Okay?”_

 

_She was looking unsure again. “Do you even know how to hold a baby?”_

 

_Bellamy swallowed. “I remember,” he said. “Holding my sister as a baby.” He blocked out the images before they could come. He didn’t like to remember often._

 

_Whatever she saw on her face changed her mind, because soon she set the wriggling, crying baby into his arms. She watched him for a moment, as his arms and hands went into the correct positions, his muscle memory still there, after all these months. “You really are good at this, aren’t you?”_

 

_Bellamy shrugged, chin jerking to the thermos. “Go sit,” he said._

 

_She rolled her eyes, and Bellamy noticed, for the first time, that she had a beauty mark above her lip. “We’re not in your diner, you can’t just boss me around,” she said, and he was about to apologize, but her lips were curving as she unscrewed the top of the thermos. She blinked. “I can’t--” she said. “I can’t have coffee.”_

 

_Bellamy shook his head. “I looked it up,” he said, “as long as you’re not drinking, like, six cups a day, you should be fine.” He looked down at the baby in his arms, wriggling and whimpering, but gradually quieting down. “He’ll be fine, too.”_

 

_The girl is quiet. “You looked it up?”_

 

_Bellamy blushed, glad it was dark. He had done it a few weeks ago, right after she’d come in, and no, he didn’t know why he did it. “Yeah.”_

 

_She was quiet again. “I’m Clarke,” she said. “Clarke Griffin.”_

 

_“Nice to meet you, Clarke,” he said. “I’m Bellamy Blake.”_

 

_“Bellamy,” she said softly, to herself, and it made his heart twist strangely._

 

_The baby started to fuss again, and Bellamy made shhhing noise, deciding to let Clarke have some peace and quiet. He walked slowly, bouncing him as he walked, hand rubbing his back until the baby quieted again and fell asleep._

 

_“He likes you,” Clarke called out softly from her bench. Bellamy looked and noticed the jacket was on her shoulders now._

 

_“What’s his name?” Bellamy wondered._

 

_Clarke smiled, and she looked much happier than he had seen her yet. “His name is Lincoln.”_

 

He’s reminded of that memory the next morning when Clarke comes in seeing Lincoln off to school, right before she goes in to open up the vet’s office.

 

Bellamy can’t help her right away-- he’s taking out the Sterlings’ order-- but he can tell by her stiff posture and the way she’s in her nicest work attire, a nicely cut blazer and pencil skirt, that something’s up.

 

“Hey,” he says, handing her a cup of coffee and putting a slice of rye toast with just a hint of butter, in front of her, (she rolls her eyes at his attempts to get her to eat a good breakfast in the morning, but she’s never passed up any food he’s given her yet, so he considers it a success.) “What’s going on?”

 

“What makes you think something is going on?” She asks.

 

“Clarke.”

 

“Bellamy.”

 

They look at each other for a moment.

 

“Get a room!” Raven, the local mechanic and their good friend, grins smugly as she brings her empty plate up to the counter. “Save those looks for the bedroom, you two.”

 

Both Clarke and Bellamy flush. It’s a badly kept secret that the residents of Arkadia have kept a running pool on when Clarke and Bellamy will get together. It’s something they’ve personally never discussed-- the bet, obviously.

 

“It’s too early for your bullshit, Reyes,” Bellamy says tiredly, taking the empty dish and Raven’s crumpled $10 bill.

 

Raven is unperturbed, and simply puts a $5 in the tip jar with a wink. “For date night,” is all she says, flouncing out the door, pony tail swinging, grease on her left elbow.

 

Bellamy and Clarke are silent for a moment, that one, awkward moment that always follows any time there are any insinuations about their completely and totally platonic friendship-- and then he asks again, erasing the moment completely (they’ve erased a lot of moments, over the years). “What’s going on, Clarke?”

 

Clarke bites her lip. “I’m doing something I swore I’d never do,” she says.

 

Bellamy stills, unprepared for that. “What is it?” He asks, unable to clamp down on the anxiety that runs through his voice. “Whatever it is, we can figure it out, okay, let’s just talk it out--”

 

Clarke laughs suddenly. “Bellamy,” she says, “it’s okay. I’m just being dramatic. Whatever it is you’re thinking, it’s not as bad as that.”

 

Bellamy refuses to feel embarrassed. “Clearly it is,” he says, frustrated, “I know you. You’re not just being dramatic.”

 

Clarke sighs, gives him a small smile. “You really do know me, huh?” She says. “Well. Even if you don’t know this for sure, I’m sure you suspect. My family is loaded. And estranged. I haven’t seen them since Lincoln was a baby.”

 

Fourteen years, nearly fifteen, ever since she moved to Arkadia. “I’m going to go see them. I’m going to ask them to help me send Lincoln to a private school.”

 

Bellamy blinks, finds himself doing the math in his head, and for the first time, he realizes he can’t help her. “Oh.”

 

Clarke’s smile turns brittle. “Yeah,” she says. “I know.”

 

Worse, Bellamy doesn’t even know what to _say._ This is a side of Clarke he knows nearly nothing about, something that’s always been sensitive to her and their relationship, especially given his snap judgement about her upon their first meeting. “Clarke--”

 

“This is what I need to do, Bellamy,” she says evenly, standing, hands fisted in her skirt. “Please don’t talk me out of it.”

 

“I wasn’t going to,” he says, holding her eyes. “Do you… do you want me to go with you?”

 

She blinks. “What?”

 

“Do you want me to go with you?”

 

“But-- the diner.”

 

“Murphy’s here; he can handle it.”

 

“You said you wouldn’t trust your fry cook with the diner since the waffles fiasco of 2007.”

 

“Clarke,” Bellamy says. “Do you want me to go with you or not?”

 

Clarke’s jaw clenches. “I can’t ask you to do that. My mother’s like a wolf, Bellamy, like a deranged, nasty wolf. And Lincoln’s grandfather--”

 

“You didn’t ask me, Clarke,” he says, gently. “I volunteered.”

 

“I don’t-- I’m a grown woman,” Clarke says. “I can do this on my own.”

 

“You can do a lot of things on your own,” Bellamy says softly, “but you don’t have to.”

 

She doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t push. “Okay,” she says finally. “But-- maybe you can stay in the car? You don’t have to come inside.”

 

Bellamy’s already taking off his apron and washing his hands. He nods. “Whatever you want,” he tells her. “Should I change?”

 

Clarke’s caught off guard. “What?”

 

He looks down at himself. He’s in his favorite pair of jeans, a newer pair that fits him well, but they’re not especially nice. His shirt is clean because it’s still early in the day, and because he accidentally used too much detergent, smells strongly of wildflowers or whatever the hell was on sale that day at the market, but it’s just a dark blue t-shirt, even slightly too small around his arms. He looks-- ordinary. Which is fine, but he guesses he’s severely underdressed for wherever they’re going. “Should I change?”

 

“Well, if you’re staying in the car,” Clarke says, narrowing her eyes suspiciously, “it shouldn’t matter.”

 

Bellamy smirks. “All right, then,” he says. “Let me go talk to Murphy and I’ll be right out.”

 

When he comes out of the diner a few minutes later, she’s in the car, staring straight ahead, knuckles white on the wheel in ten and two o’clock. “Hey,” he says lowly. “It’s going to be okay. Whatever happens.”

 

Clarke looks over at him, looking younger and more vulnerable than he’s seen in years. “Okay.” And then, without warning, she leans over and presses her lips to his cheek, close to his mouth. “Thank you,” she whispers. “For coming with me.”

 

“Of course,” he says, voice hoarser than he’d like.

  
They’re both wondering, as she drives out of Arkadia, what they’ve gotten themselves into.

**Author's Note:**

> what have i gotten myself into now??? clarke might be a LITTLE ooc, since she's in the "role" of lorelai, but i've definitely toned it down for our favorite human embodiment of the grumpy cat. i'll keep updating this until i lose interest-- there's no real clear narrative here! 
> 
> thanks, kay-em-gee, for the encouragement!


End file.
